Dawud Wharnsby is a canadian singer who is married to a Pakistani woman and lives in Abbotabad. He describes his night there and the Pakistanis he interacts with.
Excerpts and link below.
After breakfast, I went to drive my wife to the school where she works only to find the roads near our home, and the very road the school is on in an area called Bilal Town, were all closed by police and media. It was there we realized that the two stories were indeed being linked together by the media, and where we also realised that all eyes in the world were suddenly on our quiet little mountain town.
What are the only facts I can provide? There was indeed an explosion in the night and roads were indeed closed in the morning in Bilal-town and Kakul village, sub-urban areas of Abbottabad where there are indeed large scale homes, as described by various media reports.
and
Like the sticker on my guitar case says: "It will be a great day when schools have all the resources they need, and the air force will have to hold a bake sale to buy a new bomber."
It might be worthwhile also noting my thoughts on the local people's reactions to the news the US has just released, and to the celebratory reactions of some Americans in large cities like New York and Washington.
People here - my neighbours - are scared of vigilante "reactions" to the news. Parents are worried that schools and public places may become unsafe if impassioned individuals "react" to the "celebrations" they see on TV from parts of the USA. People are also sombre, not because there was public support for OBL or what he or others ideologically aligned with him might think - but because, generally speaking this news - good/bad/however you choose to take it - does not really change the lives of poor people here. 20 years ago people here were poor... now, after all that's happened in the world - the poverty has only increased for the majority of Pakistanis.
and
Talk of Afghanistan? EVERY morning I watch the Afghani refugees in my neighbourhood - the women and young girls cutting grass by the roadside and carrying sticks on their back to have kindling for the evenings, and the young boys sifting barefoot through garbage piles looking for things to sell for recycling. For them today is just another day looking for food as refugees from a country that has been wiped off the map. A country that once-upon-a-time was a hub of civilization, culture and learning.
It is really a good article -- read the whole thing:
http://www.emel.com/...